An ink jet printer is widely used at home and office as well as in the industry because of its excellent printing quality.
Compared to a home or office type printer which is basically designed to print paper sheets, the industrial ink jet printer is basically designed to print paper sheets as well as various printing objects such as woven materials, synthetic resin materials, glass materials, etc. and has a function of printing a large size printing object.
As the ink technology advances a lot, the applicable range of the ink jet printer is diversified. In case of a UV printer, an adhesive force with respect to a printing object as well as a discoloring resistance and durability are excellent, so the UV ink can be widely applied to various materials. A lot of researches are currently under way with respect to the UV ink development and printers using the same. In case of a special ink such as a conductive ink, it can be well applied to electronic parts such as a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) or a RFID antenna with the aid of its very precise patterns along with the advancing ink jet technology.
Since the industrial ink jet printer is manufactured in a large size, it has many structural and functional differences as compared to common small sixed printers.
The above different constructions related with the present invention will be described in brief. The common industrial ink jet printer has a large capacity main ink tank as well as a reservoir ink tank at an upper side of a printer head. The ink pumped from the main ink tank is first inputted into the reservoir ink tank before it is transferred to the printer head. Since the reservoir ink tank is filled with a certain amount of ink, and a water level sensor is installed, the consumption of the ink due to printing is detected by the sensor, and the detected information is transmitted to a printer controller, so the ink is continuously supplied, so a certain level of ink can be maintained all the time.
When it is needed to print, pneumatic is applied to the reservoir ink tank by a pneumatic tank (air pressure generation pump), by which ink is transferred to the printer head and is injected on a printing object via nozzles. A small level of negative pressure (lower than atmospheric pressure) is applied to the reservoir ink tank so as to prevent the dropping of ink by means of gravity at usual time before or after printing.
The ink jet printer needs four color inks of black color ink K, blue color ink C, red color ink M, and yellow color ink Y. In the industrial printer, in case of a printing object such as a wooden plate, color distortion phenomenon might occur due to the pattern of tree. In this case, it is preferred that the base is made white using white color ink W before printing. In order to enhance adhesion force of ink on the printing object, a primer solution is coated on the printing object before printing, and a coating solution like primer solution is coated to enhance durability, discoloring and color preservation performance of the printing object.
The common industrial printer needs a washing liquid for washing dirt from the nozzle and ink leftover in the reservoir ink tank.
In the conventional printer, many color inks K, C, M, Y and W, primer solution, coating solution, washing liquid, etc. and pneumatic and negative pressure are needed to be transferred to the reservoir ink tank via each port, and in case of a two-head system, each port through which each ink is redistributed and inputted into the reservoir ink tank needs an opening and closing valve, so the conventional printer head has very complicated connection constructions.
The conventional industrial ink jet printer is configured like all ink tanks and tanks are directly connected with the reservoir ink tank, due to which the constructions are very complicated, and when such connections are made wrong mistakenly, a critical damage might be given to a high expensive printer head. Since each element of the conventional printer is directly connected, the volumes and weights of connection lines, control valves and negative chamber systems should fast and precisely move along the three-dimensional axes X, Y and Z in operation, which damages the printer head parts.